


The Art of Making Friends

by Mythtaken Identity (Shadowland)



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:26:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23577013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowland/pseuds/Mythtaken%20Identity
Summary: Floating in the place outside of time, Verity and "King" Loki take their turn resolving unfinished business before everyone moves on to what comes after.
Relationships: Loki (Agent of Asgard) & Verity Willis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	The Art of Making Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in 2015, around the end of the _Loki: Agent of Asgard_ run and not posted for a host of personal reasons. Apparently, stories want to be told, even five years later and covered in dust. I don't know if I would write this story the same way today, but I think it still stands well enough.

In her mind she hears her mother making jokes about falling for the bad boy, but Verity never thought of it that way.

In fact, she never thought of it at all until just now, floating in the void, waiting for what happens next.

They could skip straight to the good stuff – Loki’s made that pretty clear – but he’s also right in that they need a break. A moment of relaxation from the craziness they left behind. A time of peace to gather thoughts and heal.

Verity’s still coming to terms with everything that’s happened: that her mother’s gone, her father’s gone, Ron’s gone, and even Tracy from the firm is gone. And yet, maybe not gone. There’s no telling what’s on the other side of the tale. There’s no telling who makes it through – or comes back, even if they don’t – and she can’t find out until they finally reach the end, but she feels she should be practical about things and prepare herself for the worst.

And yet, it doesn’t feel as though they’re gone. Nothing feels like anything. She’s free-floating in a space outside of the world without a body to anchor her and give her a sense of place or passing time. There isn’t even a night or day here, and sometimes that upsets her more than it should. A cycle of sleeping and waking would offer some structure, if nothing else. Not that she needs sleep, of course, but a period of mental inactivity is good for the spirit, which is all that’s left of her.

Loki doesn’t seem to understand, but that’s nothing new. Loki has always been a little sketchy about the human condition and his current mental expansiveness, encompassing tales past, present, and future, gives him strange and surprisingly clever insight into many things without necessarily allowing him to connect to them. He’ll get there eventually, Verity feels, but, in the meantime, conversation can be exasperating. Sometimes it’s like trying to talk to a random phrase generator that picks up on verbal cues just well enough to put together a coherent response.

In spite of this, Verity knows he cares, even if his means of showing it are a bit sideways and inscrutable.

He talks with her and laughs with her and tells her stories that might be true. At the very least, they carry the possibility of truth, somewhere, somehow, for someone. Sometimes they lie side-by-side when he talks and he holds her hand or puts his arm around her. There’s nothing there for him to hold, but his imagination is strong and the way he locks his fingers in hers, rests his hand around her waist, or lets her lean against his shoulder feel almost right.

Or would feel right if his touch felt of anything at all.

She’s never really wanted human contact – most social interactions left her feeling uncomfortable if not down-right aggravated – but now that she can no longer have it, she finds that she craves it. Not in any way that’s remotely sexual or romantic, but simply for the feeling of warmth and belonging it can bring.

Warmth, belonging, and a realness she can’t find in this void. Loki looks so woodsy-wild now, she feels she barely knows him. He makes pretty speeches about people changing, always changing, and how she, too, will change, and they’re real and they’re truth – assuming she ever lives in a human body again because she doesn’t think ghosts have much of a chance for growth – and they make all the sense in the world, but it doesn’t much matter because she’s so much fog to him and he’s little more than a high definition 3D projection to her.

She wants to put her hands on his scuffed and ragged coat, run her fingers on the sharp planes of his face, feel the thick hair on his arms – or hers, or theirs, or more, because Loki changes less than expected from one face to the next – hear the heartbeat in his chest and _know_ from texture, sound, and smell just what he is.

It’s why she feels a little bit guilty, perhaps even traitorous, giving her time to the one with whom she can.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember his cruelty and hate – Verity feels guilty for this, too, although the knowledge never really leaves her – until they surface in the rage and spite of his frustrations. Sometimes it’s hard, but sometimes it’s easy and easier still to remember being used and lied to indirectly, being put to questionable purpose, being manipulated and then left to worry. To be begged for a chance, a second chance, a third chance…

If she had spurned Loki then, what would have happened?

She supposes she knows. Someone, somewhere, already had, letting spite and venom boil in his blood instead of purging it, sometimes clumsily, with judicious lacerations of disapproval, scolding, and explanation, delivered with conviction instead of condemnation.

He’s peaceful now, mostly, although not always, because Loki is curious by nature and, while he might turn a story over in his head in quiet contemplation, it won’t hold his attention forever.

At times he creeps out of his gem-like chamber for quiet conversation, perhaps instruction, one Loki to another, and what is said, Verity never knows. He’s wary of her, now that she’s proven part of his undoing, but also obsessed with her in a way, wanting her measure as much as she wants Loki’s. The difference is that he can take it.

At first he wouldn’t come too close, treating her like some wild animal to be observed from a distance, which was fine with her because she hated him then. Or perhaps hate’s too strong a word. She disliked him for all that he’d done, but pitied him enough to allow him the benefit of the doubt, as long as he didn’t get too close to her or seem too threatening. Threaten he did, sometimes, looming and leering, and even knowing it to be an act as old as time to assert his dominance, make known his power, and protect his heart, she couldn’t feel comfortable with it.

But sometimes, too, he was what he had ended up, the crying boy, heartbroken and lost, fully capable of lashing out in his pain and desperation, but otherwise pitiable. When he approached her this way, she let him, steeling herself as he crouched nearby and simply watched. And watched. And watched.

And, eventually, touched.

The gesture startled Verity so much she screamed. She had _felt_ it, where she had felt nothing at all before.

Loki reared back and looked offended, spitted and hissed at her in his own way, and slunk off to lick the wounds of his humiliation and analyze her reaction while Loki laughed and laughed and laughed.

It had startled her, but it had also roused her curiosity, and so she had apologized, once she had calmed, and explained in no-nonsense tones that she was safe to talk to and, if he wanted to… touch her… in strictly platonic ways, that was not necessarily out of the question, as long as he asked first, not only to be polite, but because her power had limited her social interaction and made her more uncomfortable than normal.

He had seemed to accept this, although he hadn’t apologized in turn. Not then and not since. As far as Verity could tell, apologies weren’t in his nature.

He retreated to mull it over, and the next time he showed himself to her, it was to sit beside her without physical contact and ask how they had met.

She told the story as best she could – in cold fact and memories, for she was not a storyteller – and he listened sullenly, while trying to appear as though he did not, picking at his fingernails and tugging at his gloves, hunching up to hide in the heavy fur of his collar. The one time she caught him looking at her, she could only see his eyes peering over and through the feathery barrier, green and flashing, but he looked away quickly and back at his hands. When she finished, he grunted an acknowledgement, but didn’t thank her, only vanished back to his quarters to mull over her words or perhaps sulk about them.

“Not sulk,” Loki told her, threading his arm through her own, and Verity wondered how he could make it stay perfectly in synch with hers when she could not feel him at all. “I reckon he’s smitten with you. It’s kind of a new thing for him. He doesn’t know what to do about it.”

Verity snorted. “Hardly likely.”

“You think?”

“Well, surely in all that time—“

“Oh, well, yeah,” Loki said with a flourish of the hand. “In all that time, certainly. Probably. I mean, I’m horny on the best of days, never mind the worst of days, and all that time is something all right. But, you gotta think,” he added, gesturing to show the big picture, “it’s not the same as smitten. What love he had was probably kind of stunted and unsure. He wasn’t used to it, you see – I’m talkin’ from experience here – and he had all the usual problems of friendship attempts being tainted by the fact that he’s kind of an asshole.

“Now,” Loki continued, raising one finger to indicate a point, “it’s true to say that he probably didn’t have anyone helping him sort out a better way to express it either, but, generally speaking, emotional frustration shouldn’t be the basis of global genocide. This is what we call an unhealthy outlet. So, now that we’ve established all that, he’s kind of at a loss with what to do about the fact that he actually likes you since his usual go-tos are kind of in the shitter.”

“Especially since there’s not a lot of opportunity for rampant genocide here,” Verity said, looking at the white field that surrounded them.

“There’s that,” Loki admitted, “although, if he’s anything like me, which he most assuredly is in many of the worst ways, he probably knows a lot of unpleasant things to do to a free-floating spirit.”

Verity shuddered and Loki somehow managed to wrap an arm around her shoulders without her ever feeling a thing.

“He won’t do them though,” Loki assured her. “Besides the fact that I wouldn’t let him, you probably wouldn’t like it and would stop talking to him. So ghost murder’s out and so’s humping you like a dog because you’ve made it pretty clear that you’re not okay with that either. Also, he’s kinda royalty in a way and has too much class. Usually. He can fake charm, but that won’t work on you, so he’s pretty much out of ideas and he finds that upsetting.”

“I’m just not buying the part where he’s smitten by me,” Verity said. “I must be the dullest person in existence, and there are only three of us.”

“Ah, you just need some faith,” Loki said, his voice dropping and becoming uncharacteristically warm. “You smittened one Loki. Why not two?”

Verity eyed him apprehensively, but Loki smiled down at her, her nose crinkled with delight. She leaned in conspiratorially to whisper in Verity’s ear.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s fine. I like you even better as a friend. And he will too, I’m sure, when he remembers what one of those actually is.”

Well and good, Verity thought, but it didn’t help her understand much and she felt she was running out of time. Perhaps nothing more would happen than a return to the living world, but, for her own satisfaction, she needed to see this through.

Loki approached her again during one of these contemplative sessions, his expression grim and determined.

“May I?” he said, squatting beside her and extending his hand toward her face.

“I guess?” Verity said, eying him warily.

She thought he meant to stroke her cheek and worried about the intimacy of the gesture even as she waited eagerly for the touch of another. Something, anything, to make her feel real.

But, instead of touching her face, he caught the tip of her braid and carefully tugged the elastic from the end. He unwound the strands between his fingers and brushed them loose, letting the hair fall over her shoulders. Then he crab-walked over to her other side to do the same thing with the second braid, combing it out, letting the two sides mingle against her back. He was clumsy and tugged a little, given his lack of a proper brush, but having her hair played with felt good all the same. Verity focused only on the fact that she could make physical contact with someone again and enjoyed the sensation of fingers against her scalp.

In time, Loki divided her hair again and tried to re-braid it. He seemed mildly frustrated that he couldn’t make a smooth plait and that bits kept bunching up, but that was one of the dangers of styling hair, which tended to be slippery when you weren’t accustomed to handling it. It reminded her somewhat of being a child and her father’s awkward attempts to get her ready for school, her sulky annoyance at the lies he told about being able to manage it, and her mother finally taking over to calm everyone down.

In fact, if she closed her eyes, Verity could almost feel her mother’s fingers moving through her hair, half-scolding her for being ranty with her father, but half-soothing as well, knowing the frustration of having one’s hair knotted and pulled. She could almost feel her mother’s touch until Loki’s fingers brushed her neck, rougher and thicker than those of her mother, and it struck Verity, not for the first time, that she might really never see her mother again. Even if the world in general made it to the other side, her mother could be forever lost to her. Her mother, her father… Hell, even Ron and Tracy. Her body. Her life, small as it was.

She held herself together until Loki had tied off the first of the braids, and then she choked, overwhelmed by a sense of loss. It felt unreasonable – it was nothing she hadn’t already faced – but, reasonable or not, the feelings still filled her, spilling over when she reached her limit.

The worst part was being unable to cry about it. She wanted to. She felt as though, if she could cry, it would discharge the worst of the feelings and clear her head, but she had no body with which to cry, no tear ducts to produce water. She maintained the illusion of living and breathing because it was something she remembered, but in moments like these, when she sobbed involuntarily, it struck her quite abruptly that she wasn’t actually breathing at all.

“Oh God,” she moaned, and buried her face in her hands, trying not to panic as the sobbing she felt failed to translate physically, emerging breathless and dry. She felt Loki draw back sharply, as if in shock, and that made it worse somehow, driving home the point that her reactions were alien and frightening.

“What are you doing?” Loki said sharply, the waspish attitude of his older self emerging, shattering both the memory of his younger self and the impression that he wanted to make friends. “Are you crying? Why are you crying? I haven’t even _done_ anything! All I did was touch your hair. You said I could!”

He crouched beside her, looming slightly over her, annoyed, angry, and other things Verity didn’t have the emotional strength for at the moment.

“It’s not _about_ you!” Verity said, running her hands over her head, one over Loki’s clunky braid, the other through the hair that still fell loose over her shoulder. “Not everything in people’s lives is about you! I lost everything I’ve ever known. Why shouldn’t I be upset?”

“So did I,” Loki said, his tone matter-of-fact, edged with a petulance that only underlined Verity’s complaint.

That was your own fault, Verity thought, but did not say. She could, she knew. She would be justified in doing so. There was truth in that statement.

She didn’t though. Even as her friend, Loki had been painfully self-concerned. She had forgiven him because she felt he was at least marginally aware of it and trying to change. Every time he hurt her – and he _had_ hurt her, sometimes badly enough for her to question their friendship – she had felt it was his failure, not his intention. That was different. Failure happened, and – while it could, and even should, be addressed – treating a failure as a permanent fixture did nothing to change or improve it.

Verity couldn’t read Loki’s intentions now, but she also couldn’t deny the attitude was pre-existing and had simply grown unchecked.

“I know,” she said instead, mustering all the patience she could. “I know you also lost your world and you’re alone and I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to face all that. But right now, in this moment, my feelings, my very own feelings, are about me, okay? I miss my body. I miss my apartment. I miss my mom. I miss my _life_. Sometimes I thought I didn’t want it, it felt so small and worthless, but it was mine and I miss it. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m scared and I’m upset.”

Verity decided she couldn’t face Loki at that moment and looked down at the space of “ground” in front of her crossed legs. She rubbed her palms against her knees a few times and picked at a loose thread. Anything to avoid thinking. Anything to avoid looking up at Loki, who squatted beside her, sometimes getting up and pacing a little before squatting down beside her again. She wanted to get up and move away from him, or tell him to go back to his personal space, but she didn’t feel she could speak without being overcome with tears she couldn’t cry, so she simply sat and rubbed her eyes instinctively, occasionally sniffling and shuddering at the non-feeling of choking back sobs that didn’t exist.

She sensed Loki’s hands hovering near her, barely brushing her hair, withdrawing, and then returning until, finally, he sat down heavily beside her.

“I don’t… I don’t know how to do this,” he said, insisted, as he hesitantly dropped his hand over her shoulder and tried to pull her in closer. She resisted, but only a little, until her cheek brushed the soft fur of his collar, and the sensation startled her enough that she fell against him. He trapped her in his hold, clumsy, but too strong to break free, and she thought of crying out, but stopped when he only rubbed her shoulder awkwardly.

“It’s… It’s okay,” Loki said. “I think it will be okay. Your world is weird and strong and usually comes out all right after the end. It might not be the same as it was and I…” He hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. “I don’t know if you’ll get everything you lost back, but I think you’ll mostly be okay. I don’t… I don’t know what or if I’ll be when it all starts up again – maybe what I was, maybe just a memory – but the… the other one will watch out for you.”

Loki trailed off into silence and Verity waited nervously, still not-quite-sniffling, still rubbing dry eyes.

“Thank you,” she said when he seemed disinclined to continue. “For listening, I mean. For trying. And I’m sorry you’re so uncertain. It didn’t even occur to me that you wouldn’t have anything at all to go back to—“

Loki shrugged.

“I won’t miss the place I’m from,” he said. “If I thought I would, it wouldn’t have become the place I’m from. And me, well…” He paused and toyed with the loose fall of Verity’s hair. “I’m a story. Stories end, but they don’t really die. Not as long as there’s someone to remember them. That’s why stories want to be told.”

“I’m not good at telling stories,” Verity said apologetically, wishing she could offer more.

“I think there will be enough people telling it,” Loki said, “and most of them have a longer life than you, but they won’t really know how it ends. When you find out, you’ll have to tell them, so they can add it in.”

“I hope the ending’s a happy one,” Verity said.

“It’s already happier than it was,” Loki told her and Verity felt briefly embarrassed before realizing there was nothing suggestive in the comment. It was the simple truth: sitting here peacefully with her, for all its awkwardness, was a happier ending than Loki had expected.

“I’m glad,” Verity said, and meant it.

They sat together a while longer, Verity fitting easily into the crook of Loki’s arm, taking comfort in the feeling of touch once again, trying not to think of how Loki’s height and weight and breadth seemed especially _right_ against her memories. Eventually, she pulled away, gently but insistently.

“Hey,” she said, catching hold of one of the loose locks that still spilled over her shoulder. “Are you going to finish re-braiding my hair? It’ll look ridiculous if I wander around with only one.”

“As you wish,” Loki told her without inflection, expecting her to be none the wiser, not knowing how much she had learned.

She re-settled herself so he could reach the loose strands, which he wove more easily than before, moving with practised certainty. Once he had tied the braid off, Verity rose to her feet, brushing her pants off by force of habit, and then put her arms around Loki’s neck when he rose to meet her.

“Is this all right?” he said, hesitantly putting his arms around her.

“If you’re okay with this being all there is, then yes,” Verity told him, hugging him tightly. “I felt… human again for a while. It was nice. Thank you.”

They held on for several seconds in slightly nervous silence, and then a cry of flabbergasted delight took them both by surprise.

“A hug! Without me!” Loki cried, seeming to appear out of nowhere to fling her arms around the both of them. Although she was incorporeal, Verity could almost feel Loki behind her, so precise was the space she left for Verity’s shade. In fact, if she closed her eyes just so…

But no. She could feel only one Loki’s touch, which was still one more than she had expected in this place.

“I’m so glad you guys made friends,” Loki said, lingering a moment more before withdrawing. She looked on Verity with a warm and sappy smile. “Just in time, too!”

“In time?” Verity said, breaking contact with the other Loki

“I don’t know what’s going to come next,” Loki told her, “but I think we’ll find out pretty soon. It’s almost time to go.”

“So you don’t know if I’ll still be a ghost?” Verity’s heart clenched at the prospect, although she knew it must be worse to face the chance of no existence at all. In that light, she let her fingers wander and gather Loki’s hand in her own, squeezing it to offer comfort even as she took some for herself.

“Nope,” Loki admitted, scratching behind her ear, “although I rather hope you won’t be. You need a place in the world, had one, and should hopefully get it back. I’m more worried that something will happen and you won’t remember me.” She looked sad at the prospect, but then smiled brightly. “If that happens, I’ll just have to hunt you down and make you my friend again! That’s something you seem to be really good at.”

“What about Loki?” Verity said, nodding toward the other, the Loki she could touch, the unforgivable destroyer, whom she could not entirely condemn although her mind told her she should, and who looked on their clasped hands with confusion.

“You’re always thinking of me!” Loki said, genuinely touched. “That’s so sweet of you! But I don’t know about Loki either. Still, if there isn’t a place for him here,” she knocked her knuckle lightly against his chest, “there will always be a place here,” she tapped her head, “or here,” she finished, touching the spot above her heart. “Some stories can’t be left behind. Nor should they! Disregarding a potential future is as dangerous as forgetting the past. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, but I’ll be sure to take good care of him, okay?”

“Okay,” Verity said. The one beside her only nodded. “I trust you.”

“One of the few,” Loki agreed. “Are you ready to find out what’s on the other side?”

“More than ready,” Verity said. It occurred to her that Loki might not be so ready to give up his nominal existence, but she needed more than this empty space. If she was doomed to remain a ghost, at least the world would have things to see and places to go. Change could not be stopped in any case, so, in this one thing, she gave herself permission to be selfish.

“I’ll go,” Loki said, letting go of Verity’s hand. “This isn’t my world.”

“Stay,” Verity said, taking his elbow instead. “Whatever happens, do you really want to face it alone?”

“She’s got a point, you know,” Loki said, taking his other arm. “Isn’t that part of what you wanted?”

“Alone is a hard habit to break,” Loki told them.

“Scary too,” Loki agreed. “I know.”

She pulled a black marker from a hidden pocket and sized up the endless nothing before turning to them with a grin.

“Shall we?” she said.


End file.
